Week 7: Shaun not making friends, Chingay festival & Snow in Ireland!

Beautiful view of snowy Cork (Cobh)...amazing



Monday - discussion about automatic (aunodadic as Shaun called it) on the train which was so cute...Lino trying to explain to Shaun what automatic means. Then discussions about the name of our stop, Chinese Garden as Shaun loudly announces on the train “there is no Chinese! There is no Chinese!” Thankfully people thought it was funny. He just has no idea how funny he was at that moment. Busy rest of the day for me...shopping first which is always traumatic. I’ve kind of given up on the wet markets at this point so me & fair price are going to become really good friends. Quick workout which took longer to set up than to actually do then I had meeting with career a advisor which for most of it I was not paying attention because she was telling me all about LinkedIn and how wonderful it was and how to create a profile and summary statement blah blah blah. It’s not like I haven’t worked EVER in the past decade I didn’t need a tutorial on it. But to be fair she was pretty aware of my absence and after calling me I out I had to tell her she was wasting my time with the LinkedIn stuff so we mov d on to more productive stuff. Thankfully I was multitasking so it wasn’t a complete loss. After the prepping/cooking dinner and cleaning up. I had to rush to clean up because I needed to take Mikes bike to the shop to get it serviced. All of our bikes need servicing really but I’m only one person so I can only do one at a time plus when I called earlier they had said it would take 1-2 weeks to service which is too long for the boys to go without bikes so I wanted to get Mikes done first. Of course when I get there the guy said they could have picked up and dropped off the bikes after they were done which would have saved me a trip...oh well. The good news is that he said it would only take a few days to service which is great. After that I rushed to the boys school for collection and negotiated with them that we would get ice cream at IKEA so that we could do a few jobs instead. They begrudgingly agreed so we had to go home, quickly change, get bikes and take them to the shop. The boys were happy about this until we got to the stairs where we had to drag our bikes up and over the highway. A lot of crying here and a lot of unnecessary drama since I pretty much carried all 3 bikes over so there was no reason for them to get their undies in a bunch. The guy said he could replace the breaks and break pads in 30min which was great so we continued on our errands. Next stop was hair cut...I have been looking for a barber for Lino and have a few numbers but honestly it’s such a pain. The shops are not close you have to make an appointment and it cost way to much for his little head. So I’m being stupid and avoiding the inevitable and in the mean time I want to check out the hair cut places near us...cue music of doom...not exactly a good idea. The shop we went to I just asked first if she could cut his hair because most people would say no they can’t cut this type hair but she said yes then when she took a closer look she was like...”uh can not...can not can not” translation ‘I can’t cut it’. Great. So after a little discussion and negotiation she started cutting. I asked her if she had water to wet the top of his hair and I could comb it out for her but she was like “in Singapore don’t have...don’t need...hair not like this”. Me...really lady I had no idea. I even tried to comb it for her and Lino (my sweet sensitive scalp child) was wincing and crying before I could even try and she took the comb back “hurt to much...can not”. So we ended up just cutting the sides/back & left the top as it was...until next time. For some reason I totally forgot to bring cash so we had to run to ikea and get cash run back and pay then go back to ikea for the scale & ice cream I had promised the boys. Thankfully it wasn’t as crowded as the weekend so it was relatively quick getting in & out. The boys decided to get hot dogs there too which made for a cheap & easy dinner for me. Next to the mall across the street so that I could get subway for me & Mike. Finally we headed back to the bike shop. I’m sure the guy didn’t expect us to be gone so long but it didn’t matter since they were not closing yet anyway. We ended up meeting up with Mike and went home together. Poor Lino still had some homework he had to do so I started it with him and let Mike finish so that I could go play basketball with some of the ladies from the condo. It wasn’t all that exciting...I was late to begin with and they were playing 3v3 against some boys so I almost left but got distracted with my phone and they finished their little game and I was in. We only played another 15min and I actually scored a goal which was cool. The boys should have been close to bed by the time I got back but it was more like a bloodbath because Lino was over tired and refused to do the work like Mike had said so I took over. This homework stuff is no fun for anyone.

Tuesday was Terry Fox run at the school and I was running up and down stairs trying to see both boys do their running. Apparently it’s a big deal in Canada so I guess it makes sense that it’s a big deal at the school. Grade 2 ran for 14min “straight” and the Jr Kindergartners ran 7 min but I think they actually ran for longer than that. It was so cute to see the kids in their shirts and running & dancing to the music. It was harder to find Lino than Shaun because Lino was out on the soccer field and there were at least 2x as many kids. I kept looking for Lino’s hat and that was the only thing that helped me to quickly ID him although several times he snuck up on me as I was uselessly searching the herd of little kids for him.
 
After that, more food shopping then home to cook. Mike & I are both trying to get back to healthy eating so that means a lot more time prepping & cooking. I didn’t intend to spend so long cooking but it had to be done. I barely had 25min to squeeze in a small workout before heading out to get the boys. While I was picking up Shaun his teacher said she needed to talk to me so I was worried what had happened. Lino had after school activities that started today so we had to heck on him first before meeting the teacher. Lino had a nice, not so nice surprise for me...some issues going to the bathroom apparently (the poor kid continues to struggle with “listening to his body” even at 7.5yrs old). Of course Mrs Brooks was all over it and she told me she had sent me 2 emails today...not one but 2. Does she not have better things to do? Am I on her favorites list for emails? She probably has my email address memorized at this point the number of emails that I get from her in a week is unimaginable. Mostly short emails but still the time it take is just doesn’t seem like good use of her time...I digress. Anyway, we will deal with Lino’s issue later... we got him to his after school aeronautics class then went to see Mrs Martina. Basically she told me that Shaun is not getting along with the kids in the class and recently not listening to her either. It is something that we have been noticing and wondering about and now we know it’s true. So his issue is that he is to rough with the kids. When he wants to play with someone he pulls them or pushes them to do what he wants to do...not a good idea. When he tries to show affection to one of the girls he grabs them into a big bear hug and sometimes drops or pushes them down and they don’t like it...another not so good idea. If he is playing with something then moves on to something else and wants to come back to his first station he pushes the kid out of the way or destroys whatever they created...again not such a good idea when you are trying to make friends.

The other hard part is that all the kids in the class have been in the same class since the start of the school year so they have bonds formed and his way of making friend...literally making them...isn’t going over well. I feel bad for him because he is only trying the best way he knows but we’ve told him so many times about being gentle but it’s just not clicking. She also told me about his little tantrums and having a hard time with his shoes but I wasn’t so worried about that...I want him to have friends and right now he doesn’t. The other sad part is we have been trying to decide what to do for his birthday which is quickly approaching...seeing as though a lot of the kids don’t like him would they even come to a party? Should we avoid a party all together so that he won’t see that his friends are not really his friends? Such a hard decision. I told mike we should just bring cupcakes to school to make it easy and know that all his classmates are there but Mike thinks we should have a party and Shaun wants a party for sure...we will have to decide something soon and even that is another challenge that I’m not so interested in dealing with. After that we camped out outside of Lino’s class and started reading until Shaun fell asleep...so tired from the days at school...my sweet boy. If only the other kids knew how great you are. Once Lino was finished we headed home to finish up homework and Lino to get cleaned up. Home work is such a pain because Lino hates to do anything that is difficult but thankfully today was only math on the iPad which he likes.

Wednesday was another busy day. I’m realizing that I’m wasting so much of my day traveling back and forth to the boys school. On an average day I spend 4hrs doing this but today I added another trip for lunch which meant 6hrs! I could have just stayed around the school before or after lunch but I didn’t want to be just hanging around...There are better things to do...aren’t there? Anyway, it’s a waste of time but the reward is seeing the boys for lunch which is always an interesting treat. Shaun’s classmates always notice me before he does and he seems so happy to see us both there today which was nice. Lunch is quick but poor Shaun spends so much time talking that he doesn’t have a hope of ever finishing lunch. He didn’t seem to mind to much and his friend, I need to ask his name, I’m not even sure if he is his friend or just a kid that always seems to be around him, but anyway this little character is always giving me crap about being there. He throws out the insults freely!!!! “Shouldn’t you be at home?” “You don’t belong here” “Shaun has a mean mom!” Stuff like that...today he was digging into Mike “You can’t sit in those chairs (small toddler chairs) because you might break them” Mikes response “you’re probably right”, kids response “because you are fat...look at your belly”. Man if we were not at school I would have had a few words for him but at 4.5 is it really with it??? Probably not. Anyway, we did sit in the kids chairs and we did NOT break them and we had a nice chat with Shaun. Lunch with Lino was even more anticlimactic. The most interesting thing about lunch with Lino is 1) he decided to warm up his whole lunch container...why? Because he could and there is a microwave and no supervision over it so he had a melted ham & cheese sandwich and warm grapes and apples 🤢 2) one of Lino’s little buddies appears to be obsessed with him...he is ALWAYS touching Lino. He is always sitting near him and he is always always looking at him! It’s freaky!!! Maybe its curiosity because Lino is different or maybe it’s just plain admiration. Regardless it’s freaky. So lunch was...interesting. Then the hike back home with a quick stop at the store for some food then back to school...I’m only doing 5hrs of transport today...today after the after school activities are done we are getting a cab...mama is tired! Shaun played in the playground while Lino had his afternoon basketball. I wanted to watch but Shaun was having none of it. Tonight we played Sorry during dinner...brothers vs mother. What an epic battle it was. I was prepared to win and deal with the winning from the peanut gallery because I started out with 2 men in the safe zone before the brothers could even get 4 mean out to start. It ended up being pretty intense with a lot of men being sent to home and me & Lino always recounting each other’s moves to check for cheating...it was a lot of fun. Mike came in right at the end and he was like, to me “do you really think you have a chance to defeat the Sorry champion of the wild?” I did think I had a good chance but I didn’t say that and thankfully I didn’t because the brothers didn’t allow the mother to put another man in the safe zone for the rest of the game...I lost! They wanted to play again and I would have if it wasn’t so late...next time my little Sorry Champions.

Thursday started out nice and relaxed but the afternoon got busy. I had a nice long chat with my sis which was nice and she loved my verbal interpretation of Shaun’s pee situation (see last weeks post). I’m glad she got such humor from my sorrow and frustration. Since I spent so much time talking to TT I kind of had to rush to do my other errands....first off to the bike shop to pick up mine & Mikes bikes. I was planning to ride one bike back home and walk back to get the other one and ride it back home too but I didn’t have enough time so I had to take 2 at once. It was a sight to see I must say...the walking part wasn’t such a big deal but the 3 flights of stairs up that I to take to get over the bridge was a sight. I told myself it was a workout so I just picked up the front of both bikes and went up the stairs. I had to stop & readjust after the 2nd flight but I made it up and down without loosing a bike. It saved me a good 20min which was great. Next I had to go to the post office for Mike which I had no idea where it was and I had no idea how big his packages were. I thought to cycle over and back in order to save time but since I didn’t know how big the 2 packages were I just took the bus which luckily for me picked up and right in front of the apartment and dropped me only 2min walk from the post office so it wasn’t bad at all. And it was only 2 envelopes so I could have cycled over after all. I’m just happy I got all of it down because Friday I don’t want to have nearly as much to do. Next pick up from school... After picking up Shaun from school he just wanted to play and didn’t want anything to do with me which was a little sad and a little good because I wanted to do a few things on the internet too. When we were about to leave a lady that I have been seeing a few times around the school stopped me and introduced herself...another possible friend maybe! She is Namibian and her husband Dutch/American I think and they lived in Shanghai for over 10yrs and moved to Singapore over the summer. I was a little shocked when she started speaking to the teacher in mandarin so I had to ask her and she was like “I loved in China for 10yrs...it’s a long time so I learned the language” impressive. I’m sure it’s no that impressive but it is a little. Anyway we got to chatting and it was nice to have a chat with another mom. Her oldest son is in the Chinese class that Lino is in although I can’t see how he needs it because he seems to understand pretty much 100% of what you say in Mandarin but I guess he doesn’t speak it which is the problem. I’m just hoping the boys will pick it up enough to understand it fluently and if they could speak it partially that would be great!!! Anyway this nice encounter was nice and all but really messed up my afternoon because we had a tight schedule. So I tried multitasking and called a cab while I was talking but apparently I called the cab to the wrong address...next door not the school. So I was on the phone with the cab driver for 10min tying to figure out where he was and where I was and him fussing at me about checking my location before I book the taxi and not trusting the gps to know where I am and that I should know my address and blah blah blah. I don’t even barely know my home address how the hell am I suppose to know the schools physical address...seriously. Eventually he found me at the school where I told him 10x I was at and after more fussing we made it home but I barely had time to make the burgers I had planned to make for dinner. Shaun had basketball like 15min after we got to the apartment and it just wasn’t enough time. So I threw the burgers at the boys and put the basketball into Lino’s hand and sent them down to the court without me. I had a call to make so needed a few minutes before I could head down. I gave Lino explicit instructions about the burgers and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t follow them. So when I finally got thing back in order and finished my stuff I raced down to see them and the burgers were on the ground. Not directly, they were on the plates that I gave Lino but one was inside the 2 plates one was on top and the ants were swarming a piece of cheese that must have dropped out of burgers nearby and closing in fast on the makeshift container Lino made for their uneaten burgers. Luckily they had not found the burgers yet so I was able to save them but if I would have been a few minutes late it would have been a different story. I finally got them to finish their burgers and they got to ride their bikes for a little before bed. For some reason this evening I was not in the best of moods. The boys were a little off ...we had rushed to have crappy frozen burgers for dinner and I just felt blah. I think the reality of not having any friends and Shaun having problems at school just finally hit. I know we have been through this before but it’s so different with the boys being in school and being in Singapore where helpers are the ones to pick up and drop off the kids. There just doesn’t seem to be as many opportunities to make friends. Or maybe I’m just not doing enough to put myself out there? Then Shaun not settling well makes it even worse. He has become a lot more of a pain these last few weeks...being more like Lino than Shaun and I was hoping it would pass but I have no idea how it’s going to pass or how it’s going to impact him at school. If the first impression the kids have of him is that he is mean or rough or not nice it could take a while to change their minds. I just knew he would be fine making friends but he has become to much of a bully dealing with his brother that it is biting him in the butt now. All that and my own inner turmoil was just making me sad. What can you do to help your kids make friends. I can talk to Shaun which I have done and will keep doing but at the end of the day he has to understand what he is doing and change it himself. I only pray it’s short term and he will figure out how to play better with the kids. If the boys are settling in well then it helps me to feel more settled too.

Friday I tried to get up early to work out but just wasn’t feeling it. I also knew the boys were over tired and never ever ever sleep in over the weekend for fear of missing one minute of iPad time so I decided to let them sleep in and prayed that they would get an extra few winks to help them be in a better mindset for school. I think it’s just all going so fast and they don’t want to miss a thing so it’s just go go go. I have to find a way to bring it down a little. Especially after the email that I received from Shaun’s teacher late last night. Apparently Shaun had another incident at school this time at nap time...there was a girl who he said was bothering him (this is debatable) and not letting him go to sleep and apparently he was keeping her from going to sleep too. At some point he told her “if you don’t stop bothering me I’m going to kill you, I'm going to cut your throat”. Well that didn’t go down well because of course the girl told on Shaun and now I’m getting and email and he’s probably going to be seen as the wild nearly psychotic kid. Even worse is that I know where he got that phrase from, me! I tell them all the time I’m going to kill them if they don’t stop messing with me and listen but I never thought he would use it like that at school.  Just for clarification I never say I'm going to cut your throat.  Anyway, I hear him say I'm going to kill you to Lino all the time and I just tell him not to say it and I don’t think much about it but I guess I need to really stop saying it myself. Man, talk about bad parenting...it’s just making this week even more horrible...I’m so glad it’s Friday. So I thought a sleep in would help...they slept almost an extra hour more than a normal school day so that was good. Even after that they were still tired but we didn’t at least have to trek to the bus & mrt so they could save a little more energy. This evening I had my first networking event which I was a bit worried about but it turned out good. On the bus ride there I met an interesting 84yr old lady who is not a grandma. She was just looking at my phone and commenting about it and her age and I showed her a picture of my grandma (showing off kind of) and she was saying how happy she looked with her grandkids. Apparently this 84yr old does not have grand kids and is not happy at all but miserable...”I am not happy, I am miserable...I hate my husband...he is a bad man and makes my life hell” Me 😳 she continues on...”he is not a nice man and I wish him dead every day! People die all the time but he never die, I pray and pray and pray but he never die! Why he won’t die?” Me 😳 and she continues on...”I really hate him and some days I think to kill him but I don’t because of the kids...they tell me to be more nice to him but they don’t know him like I do...he is an evil man. Why can’t he die? I pray every day he die but he don’t die” Me I’m sorry to hear that...I hope you can find some happiness. Her “I will never be happy unless he dies and he will never die. He just wants my money so he wants me to die so he can have it and I won’t let him have it so I can’t die and he won’t die so I will always be not happy”. Me...well this is my stop. Best of luck 😕...enough said about that conversation. So the event was sponsored by PMI which is good since I’m suppose to be drumming up some business for Aspira. I figured I’d stay 1.5-2hrs but ended up being there for 3.5hrs somehow which was not expected but worked out. I met some interesting characters and made one connection that might even been a possible training opportunity which is great. I did realize that I need to get some business cards or something because people are really about that here. And I learned a lot about training which was not expected but good too. Apparently there is a lot of government grants to subsidize the cost of training to make it more affordable here which is good for the people but not so good for me/Aspira. One of the guys at my table was really serious about training so he was giving me a lot of tips and insights about it. There seems to be a lot more leg work required before we could really get into training here. The culture of training is different too. People do it to get some sort of diploma/certificate and almost always do it at the universities. The base cost is pretty high, like avg $1300 for a 4 day course but if you qualify for the grant and are a local or over a specific age the cost could go down to as low at $65 which is incredible! Anyway, good information...more work to do.

Saturday was soccer & swimming at the school. The boys hate it when we have to leave to go to Saturday morning activities but after they get there they enjoy it. We had dim sum at the mall for lunch and as soon as we sat down Lino started whining and complaining about not wanting to eat that food. Of course we ignored him and then suggested that he get some pork buns because he likes them but he refused… We got them anyway. After all of his fussing and complaining he ended up really loving the food which we expected. If only he could avoid the complaining at the beginning he wouldn’t be so bad to deal with. Once we get back home the boys got a few minutes of iPad time and Mike got packed for his trip to Europe. I had planned to take the boys to a festival but then it started to rain really bad and I thought we wouldn’t be able to go. Eventually the rain cleared up and we were able to go… Even though the boys did not want to leave their iPads.  Mike wasn’t able to go with us because he needed to make his flight so it was just me and the boys.
 
The main Chingay parade happened last weekend but apparently there are some smaller ones around the city that are still happening so we went to the one not to far from us. It started out kind of non-interesting but it ended up being a good time out. There were really decorated floats that lit up in the dark and people were on them dancing which was cool. They also had “live food stands” which I didn’t know what that meant until we got there...basically free food stands which was pretty cool. It wasn’t really enough for a meal unless you went to a few stands. The boys had played a few games and won bags of cookies so they were not so hungry but I made them have some food anyway. We stayed much longer than I thought but the boys had a good time so it was worth all the mosquito bites I guess. This is one thing I really like about Singapore is that there is always something going on and something to do. And even this event that was very simple but also very good because it wasn’t so crowded/busy we were able to spend over 2hrs there and could have stayed longer and all it cost me was $10 for the 2 glow in the dark helicopter toys the boys wanted to have. I could do this every weekend!

Sunday we were on our own. We spent most of the day at home on iPads and I had a few interviews with helpers then we took a bike ride to the hawker for lunch...the boys love to cycle to the hawker which is nice. That evening I searched for jobs and just chilled out. A nice and calm Sunday to end the week.





Almost forgot about the snow in Ireland...this week Ireland got hit by a blizzard.  Normally the weather warnings for snow are very over dramatized and usually 3-4 inches of snow is all that the country gets and maybe 2 inches of accumulation but this time it was actual snow!  Cork apparently got about 1 foot of snow and Dublin maybe 2 feet...this is a crazy amount of snow and from the talks with my friends most of them have not seen that much snow in over 30yrs.  So of course as the Irish do, they went all out...went all out with everything.  There was apparently a bread pandemic and there were so many snowmen made the country probably doubled its population in the 3 days that everyone was stuck at home.  Facebook was filled with all the jokes about the bread shortage and snowman sightings. 

The one thing I have to say, the Irish do a great job of making fun of themselves.  I mean, they do not hold back and they are so  exaggerated but accurate all at the same time...it is no small skill...it is truly amazing.  I was dying laughing looking at FB all weekend.  It was also cool to see all my peeps in their snow gear and living years of childhood dreams on 3 days of snow.  From the kids all the way up to the elderly...everyone was really enjoying it.